Standards
The standards we expect dental professionals to have reached at the end of their education and training for registration are set out in two documents:
The first five years for dentists (100kb, PDF)
Developing the dental team for each of the six groups of DCPs (197kb, PDF)
Quality Assurance
We quality assure existing and new courses leading to registration for both dentists and DCPs. We do this through an annual monitoring exercise and inspections. When we carry out an inspection, our inspectors produce reports on their findings.
UK Dental Schools
We organise regular cycles of inspections to all UK dental schools to check the standards of the UK dental degree programmes. A report is produced following each inspection. The reports on the BDS/BChD programmes and Final Examinations at each school include the school's observations and can be found in the quality assurance section of the website.
General Report of the Visitors on the 2003-05 Dental Schools Visitation Programme
We visited all UK dental schools during 2003 - 2005 to report on their provision of BDS/BChD programmes.The General Report highlights the GDC's key findings from the quality assurance visits to the schools. It identifies examples of good educational practice and also makes recommendations for further developing the delivery of dental education.
Download the General report of the visitors (94kb, PDF)
UK DCP Schools
We also inspect existing and new DCP education providers. For each inspection visit, Inspectors produce reports on their findings which will contain recommendations for improvement. The reports are listed according to registrant type in the quality assurance section of the website.
Guidance
We have prepared guidance on our education procedures for course providers and awarding bodies. Find out how to submit a course for approval, how we run our inspections and how we judge whether a course is sufficient for GDC registration.
Download 'How we check the quality of dental education and training' (110kb, PDF)
It is also part of our job to ensure dentists and DCPs who join our registers continue to meet the standards we require throughout their career. We do this in several ways:
We have recently carried out a review of what our role should be in future in relation to the education of dentists and DCPs and how we can strengthen our protection for patients. The review was carried out by an Education Strategic Review Group, which reported to our Education Committee on 24 April 2008. The Education Committee endorsed the findings of the review and will agree an implementation plan in February 2009.
One of the issues the Review highlighted was increasing concern over dentists practising implantology, and the need to make sure that only dentists who have carried out appropriate training offer patients implant services. The Education Committee has issued a policy statement in the light of these concerns and will consult on how to regulate the practice of implantology in early 2009.